Month: September 2008

There used to be a time when was a genuine nature nut. The whole sleeping-out-in-the-woods-with-a-thousand-vicious-mosquitoes-needling-you-simultaneously-experience fascinated me thoroughly. Honest. But my tryst with the great outdoors ended with the summer of 2002. It seems like yesterday, I was like any normal 13 year old, fighting my own battles with evil things like acne and the strange growth of hair in stranger places, not to mention the weird smell that would follow me wherever I went (it took me sometime to realize it was me). A couple of classmates were all enthusiastic about signing up for some impromptu camp thing, it was a one night thing and it was being organized by a well known enterprise too, so I got swayed. This was my big chance to actually experience the stuff that made Enid Blyton’s characters go all gosh-golly. Convincing the parents was surprisingly easy and before I knew it I had been dropped at the Besant Camping grounds by my parents (after many ‘be careful’s). Truth be told, I enjoyed slushing through the “woods” and stamping on dry leaves to look exotic birds. All we saw were different varieties of crow, but then again, the experience was what really mattered. I also enjoyed the beach walk, which basically skilfully maneuvering through the dog poop spread all over the sand.
But Nature! Yes, the lone thought of all those beautiful “nature” wallpapers in my computer was the only thing that was fuelling my zest.
Before we knew it was 11 pm. Around 20 of us were packed into one tent, thanks to one of my friend’s extreme generosity. At about 3 am (I knew this ’cause I had a glow-in-the-dark watch then, it was like the heights of cool) my best friend, K, woke me up. Well, not wake up technically, because I wasn’t sleeping too soundly, it’s hard when there are a thousand blood thirsty mosquitoes trying to suck your life out at the same time.

Anyway, Queen K was in dire need to do the Royal Pee-Pee. Which meant she needed me, her loyal knight in my-honeybee-pajama-armour to help guide her to the royally-creepy loos. I didn’t have a problem, I am the regular braveheart after all. No creepy camping grounds at 3 am freaked me out, nope. So I guided K through the path to the toilets.

It was while waiting for her when the terror happened.

A giant THING was on the floor. I kid you not, it was the size of a komodo dragon. I squealed. Hearing my not-so-little squeal, K, my dutiful best friend squealed as well, and came hurtling out of the toilet 3 seconds later to lend me her support. Then we both saw the THING and squealed together while making a run for our tent. Now, we had sprinted back to our tent and went back to sleep in order to forget about the THING.

The next morning, while standing in line for breakfast, a rather enthusiastic boy came up to us.

“You know ya? There was wolf and all near our tents yesterday night”
“Wolf a?”
“Ya ya, wolf only. I think it ate somebody”
“Ate someone?”
“Yes ya! I heard screaming and all. It was horrible. Like the wolf tore the victim apart. Horrible ya, but I heard it, mother promise!”

By the end of breakfast, the wolf story (with full dramatization) had spread across the entire camp and some girls were in the verge of tears. It took some major damage control from the camp instructors to calm them down.
Some of the boys were extremely happy though, each one of them thought that he was some kind of Indiana Jones to have survived a night among the wolves. Stuff that they’d tell their grandchildren.

Which is why I never told them the truth about the blood curdling screams. An extremely fat lizard, somehow doesn’t quite have the same effect as a wolf.

So everyone’s making noise over the whole Big Bang theory, which is something I can’t quite understand. I thought Bill Clinton proved it years ago. Anyway, I thought I’d do a scientific appraisal of the whole issue and finally conclude to nothing in particular, as it is with all scientific appraisals but unfortunately I don’t believe I’m qualified enough. After all, at one point of time, I was convinced that that croutons were a type of sub-atomic particle.

Preeti tagged me with the Quotes tag. I did something similar to it once but then again, you can never hear too many gems of absurdity…or was it wisdom?

“Naanga idchcha morapeengo, neenga idchcha eshoosh me” – (If we bump you, you stare, but if you bump us, ‘eshoosh me’)Saadhu Shanmugham ponders upon the many ironies in life.When my father was a teenager, the only timepass he had was to hang around in the street with an interesting assortment of small time trouble makers and wastrels. This included the Shanmugam in question who was either high on pot/ganja or sleeping. The wisdom (fuelled by marijuana) that he spouted was of course, one of a kind.

“There is no free lunch in life” –Pattabhi Ram, my Financial Management teacherPattabhi, Pattu for us, his students is a seperate class of teacher. His casual tone, the way he goes “Use your calculator, yaar” are something unique to him. This is one thing that he keeps saying in class – nothing comes without effort. There are a million other proverbs/quotes which conveys the same thing but somehow, this just sounds cooller than the rest.

“When a normal man touches current, he will get a shock. I am Narasimma. If current touches me, current will get shock!” Vijaykanth teaches us mortals what our physics teachers didn’t.

“There is no charge for awesomeness…or attractiveness” – Po the Panda. In case you haven’t watched Kung Fu Panda yet (the blasphemy!), smack yourself on the head and see it.

“Somberi Saavugraaki, navuththu ya vandi-ya!” – random auto guy(Move your damn vehicle you lazy asshole!) When i had just started driving, I was still getting used to gear shifts. This one time I had gone way too slow for second gear because the lane was tiny and I was nervous, which resulted in the car making an almighty halt. As I fumbled with the gears and keys, trying to make my car start again, the auto guy behind me decided to teach me some roadsense. I might not be a great driver but that auto fellow was talking as though he was Schumacher and was not used to going any slower than 100 km/hr. I started my car again alright, but extra slow, occupying the middle of the road, making sure he couldn’t overtake too. I think that was when I first started enjoying driving in Chennai.

I tag you. Have fun.

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